Art adventures in Bologna, Italy.
Just back from Bologna. I was there showing work for Magda Danysz Gallery at Arte Fiera. I think there were about 200 galleries from all over the world represented in the fair. Most of the work I saw fits within the generic "fine art" genre. Lots of abstract paintings, sculpture, videos, installations, etc. As a "street artist", my work definately stood out. I really have to thank Magda for fronting the whole trip, and having the courage to shake up the "established" art world a little. It was a great success in my mind. I met lots of influential artworld people, collectors, fans, and fellow artists. I also did about 6 interviews for magazines and newspapers. I was even on a local TV news program. It was great to get such positive feedback from so many fair patrons and the media.
Here's some photos of the space.

I rendered the text on the wall over the course of 3 days.

I did the whole wall with Posca paint pens. None of it was premeditated. Just a manifestation of the madness of my moment-to-moment thought processes.

From the local paper.

This is Paulo and I. He owns Drago Publishing in Italy. He published the "Muerte" book.

This is the flyer for the book signing and party he organized. Thanks, Paulo!

Lots of fans came to get their books signed. Loved this guy's Holga.

While I worked on the wall drawing before the show opened, Magda's assistant Silvia got me snacked up on these Gran Pavesi.

The Moretti's were flowing too, although I definately drank a lot more Peroni.

Pink Panther Pizza hit the spot too.

Honestly, I wasn't interested in much of the work in the fair. I did LOVE this golden Buddha. I was especially stoked to see Buddha as a woman! Awesome.

Loved this illustration too. Super radness.

I stayed in a rented apartment on this street in Bologna.

In the mornings, I'd hang out on the patio drinking instant decaf and tripping out on how old the architecture was.

Around 11am, I'd head out for pizza. I ate pizza every day. The last day, it's all I ate. It's bomb, as you'd expect. Along the journey to my favorite lunch spot, I'd walk down this portico. The whole old city of Bologna is designed with these covered sidewalks. If it's raining or snowing, you're chillin'. So smart. Also, check out the ceiling. It's decked out with paintings. Walking around Bologna was like being in a living museum. Incredible.

Although I didn't smoke any grass in Italy, it was great to see this pro-cannabis tilework in the sidewalk every day.

I thought this elevated crypt was pretty fresh. There were more scattered all over the city.

Loved the facades, especially this one near the Piazza Maggiore.

I couldn't believe the sheer volume of incredibly crafted architecture and frescos.

Such great public art. I love flying baby heads.

I'm a big fan of sexy mermaids shooting fountains of water out of their tits too.

Don't fuck with the Pope!

There were lots of reminders of the horrors of World War II, like this wall of tile memorials.

Saw a few of these charcoal sketches mixed with the usual street graffiti. I liked it.

Everyday I walked past this fish vendor.

Great fresh vegetables at the next vendor.

Pasta, pasta, pasta!

I drank a lot of wine. Really good wine.

Great window displays.

Is it me, or did sound equipment really look a lot cooler back in the day?

I love the style and colors on the traditional pottery.

I wasn't so fond of all the Italian ladies in fur coats. To each his or her own though.

Lunch. Everyday. Two thick squares of Italian hotness. I thought it was strange that when I ordered two slices, they would serve it to me like this. It's like a Cheese on Cheese crime, but I got used to it without difficulty.

While I waited for the bus to the fair, with aforementioned delicious pizza in hand, I'd photograph cyclists, my heart burning with envy.

Love the Euro style. Can't wait to be a permanent part of it.

This is Donatello. I had my first real Italian dinner at his restaurant. Photographs of famous patrons adorned the walls. I love that shit. The food was fantastic.

Rufus and I finished off our meal with lemon sorbetto. It was simply one of the best things I've ever had in my mouth.

We went back a few nights later, and I had the gnocchi. I was in Carb Heaven.

And the gelato was without question the best I've ever had.

Last Friday night, I had dinner with Bacchus at Restaurante Rodrigo. Highly recommended.

This is Magda and I parading as some famous Euro art collectors after dinner at Rodrigo.

Europeans regard Bologna as a capital of fine cuisine. Unfortunately for me, the specialty is meat, and lots of it. When this prosciutto platter came out, I headed for the beer.

For my last meal in Bologna, I ate yet another pizza. I really never got tired of it. That's my "vegetariano" pizza in the foreground. Jesus, I miss it already.

On Friday morning, I walked around to catch some sights. Found this old Roman wall, a vestige of the original city wall. Looks like they weren't fucking around. Tough times.

Found this sculpture next to a legal graffiti spot. Dope.

I seriously think I could push this van over all by myself. Smaller is better, I say.

"Dead Cops". Whoa.

The main train station.

Next time I'll be arriving at this station with bike in hand.

This bike shop was a few doors down from my apartment. Of course, since it was lunchtime, it was closed. Most businesses are closed from 12:30 to 3pm. Everybody goes to lunch and chills out. Sounds good to me, although it did suck if you really needed something before 3:00.

On Saturday morning, I went out to find a bike shop that was open. Found one, and rolled out with some traditional French cruiser bars, which I've already modified for my track bike. I love the smell of old bike shops. And the older fellow that owned and operated the store was super cool. He only sold traditional European street bicycles. The track bike craze hasn't hit Bologne yet. Yet.

There were great posters and cards on the walls.

Dirty fucking Italians. Matching tires and swimsuits? Sick.

Classic.

This framing shop is pretty classic too. It was great to see so many old tools still being used.

On Saturday night, I met a friend from Milan at a video and music festival in a fucking ancient building. Super sick. This artist from Japan was playing a drumset that set off a video display of kung-fu movies and weird Japanese commercials. Fucking bananas.

Spotted this rad old cigarette machine on the walk home.

I'll conclude with this shot of Silvia and Magda and I outside Disco D'Oro (Bologna's best music shop and host of the Drago party), on my last night in town. Thanks for making the trip happen for me, ladies. We gotta do it again sometime.
(No comments, please.)

We haven't been featuring many interviews as of late. Let's change that up as we check in with a few local San Francisco artists like Kevin Earl Taylor here whom we studio visited back in 2009 (PHOTOS & VIDEO). It's been awhile, Kevin...

If you like guns and boobs, head on over to the Shooting Gallery; just don't expect the work to be all cheap ploys and hot chicks. With Make Stuff by Peter Gronquist (Portland) in the main space and Morgan Slade's Snake in the Eagle's Shadow in the project space, there is plenty spectacle to be had, but if you look just beyond it, you might actually get something out of the shows.

Fifty24SF opened Street Anatomy, a new solo show by Austrian artist Nychos a week ago last Friday night. He's been steadily filling our city with murals over the last year, with one downtown on Geary St. last summer, and new ones both in the Haight and in Oakland within the last few weeks, but it was really great to see his work up close and in such detail.

Congrats on our buddies at Needles and Pens on being open and rad for 11 years now. Mission Local did this little short video featuring Breezy giving a little heads up on what Needles and Pens is all about.

Matt Wagner recently emailed over some photos from The Hellion Gallery in Tokyo, who recently put together a show with AJ Fosik (Portland) called Beast From a Foreign Land. The gallery gave twelve of Fosik's sculptures to twelve Japanese artists (including Hiro Kurata who is currently showing in our group show Salt the Skies) to paint, burn, or build upon.

Backwoods Gallery in Melbourne played host to a huge group exhibition a couple of weeks back, with "Gold Blood, Magic Weirdos" Curated by Melbourne artist Sean Morris. Gold Blood brought together 25 talented painters, illustrators and comic artists from Australia, the US, Singapore, England, France and Spain - and marked the end of the Magic Weirdos trilogy, following shows in Perth in 2012 and London in 2013.

San Francisco based Fecal Pal Jeremy Fish opened his latest solo show Hunting Trophies at LA's Mark Moore Gallery last week to massive crowds and cabin walls lined with imagery pertaining to modern conquest and obsession.

Well, John Felix Arnold III is at it again. This time, he and Carolyn LeBourgios packed an entire show into the back of a Prius and drove across the country to install it at Superchief Gallery in NYC. I met with him last week as he told me about the trip over delicious burritos at Taqueria Cancun (which is right across the street from FFDG and serves what I think is the best burrito in the city) as the self proclaimed "Only overweight artist in the game" spilled all the details.

Ever Gold opened a new solo show by NYC based Henry Gunderson a couple Saturday nights ago and it was literally packed. So packed I couldn't actually see most of the art - but a big crowd doesn't seem like a problem. I got a good laugh at what I would call the 'cock climbing wall' as it was one of the few pieces I could see over the crowd. I haven't gotten a chance to go back and check it all out again, but I'm definitely going to as the paintings that I could get a peek at were really high quality and intruiguing. You should do the same.

The paintings in the show are each influenced by a musician, ranging from Freddy Mercury, to Madonna, to A Tribe Called Quest and they are so stylistically consistent with each musician's persona that they read as a cohesive body of work with incredible variation. If you told me they were each painted by a different person, I would not hesitate to believe you and it's really great to see a solo show with so much variety. The show is fun, poppy, very well done, and absolutely worth a look and maybe even a listen.

With rising rent in SF and knowing mostly other young artists without capitol, I desired a way to live rent free, have a space to do my craft, and get to see more of the world. Inspired by the many historical artists who have longed similar longings I discovered the beauty of artist residencies. Lilo runs Adhoc Collective in Vienna which not only has a fully equipped artists creative studio, but an indoor halfpipe, and private artist quarters. It was like a modern day castle or skate cathedral. It exists in almost a utopic state, totally free to those that apply and come with a real passion for both art and skateboarding

I just wanted to share with you a piece I recently finished which took me 4 years to complete. Titled "How To Lose Yourself Completely (The September Issue)", it consists of a copy of the September 2007 issue of Vogue magazine (the issue they made the documentary about) with all faces masked with a sharpie, and everything else entirely whited out. 840 pages of fun. -Bryan Schnelle

Jeremy Fish opens Hunting Trophies tonight, Saturday April 5th, at the Los Angeles based Mark Moore Gallery. The show features new work from Fish inside the "hunting lodge" where viewers climb inside the head of the hunter and explore the history of all the animals he's killed.

Beautiful piece entitled "The Albatross and the Shipping Container", Ink on Paper, Mounted to Panel, 47" Diameter, by San Francisco based Martin Machado now on display at FFDG. Stop in Saturday (1-6pm) to view the group show "Salt the Skies" now running through April 19th. 2277 Mission St. at 19th.

For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to quit my job, move out of my house, leave everything and travel again. So on August 21, 2013 I pushed a canoe packed full of gear into the headwaters of the Mississippi River in Lake Itasca, Minnesota, along with four of my best friends. Exactly 100 days later, I arrived at a marina near the Gulf of Mexico in a sailboat.

I'm not sure how many people are lucky enough to have The San Francisco Giants 3 World Series trophies put on display at their work for the company's employees to enjoy during their lunch break, but that's what happened the other day at Deluxe. So great.

When works of art become commodities and nothing else, when every endeavor becomes “creative” and everybody “a creative,” then art sinks back to craft and artists back to artisans—a word that, in its adjectival form, at least, is newly popular again. Artisanal pickles, artisanal poems: what’s the difference, after all? So “art” itself may disappear: art as Art, that old high thing. Which—unless, like me, you think we need a vessel for our inner life—is nothing much to mourn.

Hard-working artisan, solitary genius, credentialed professional—the image of the artist has changed radically over the centuries. What if the latest model to emerge means the end of art as we have known it? --continue reading

"[Satire] is important because it brings out the flaws we all have and throws them up on the screen of another person," said Turner. “How they react sort of shows how important that really is.” Later, he added, "Charlie took a hit for everybody." -read on

NYC --- A new graffiti abatement program put forth by the police commissioner has beat cops carrying cans of spray paint to fill in and cover graffiti artists work in an effort to clean up the city --> Many cops are thinking it's a waste of resources, but we're waiting to see someone make a project of it. Maybe instructions for the cops on where to fill-in?

The NYPD is arming its cops with cans of spray paint and giving them art-class-style lessons to tackle the scourge of urban graffiti, The Post has learned.

Shootings are on the rise across the city, but the directive from Police Headquarters is to hunt down street art and cover it with black, red and white spray paint, sources said... READ ON

SAN FRANCISCO --- The Headlands Center for the Arts is preparing for their largest fundraiser of the year set to go down on June 4th at SOMArts here in the city. Art auction, food, drinks, live music, etc and all for helping to support a great institution up in the Marin Headlands. ~details

ABOUT HEADLANDSHeadlands Center for the Arts provides an unparalleled environment for the creative process and the development of new work and ideas. Through a range of programs for artists and the public, we offer opportunities for reflection, dialogue, and exchange that build understanding and appreciation for the role of art in society.

We haven't been featuring many interviews as of late. Let's change that up as we check in with a few local San Francisco artists like Kevin Earl Taylor here whom we studio visited back in 2009 (PHOTOS & VIDEO). It's been awhile, Kevin...

If you like guns and boobs, head on over to the Shooting Gallery; just don't expect the work to be all cheap ploys and hot chicks. With Make Stuff by Peter Gronquist (Portland) in the main space and Morgan Slade's Snake in the Eagle's Shadow in the project space, there is plenty spectacle to be had, but if you look just beyond it, you might actually get something out of the shows.

Fifty24SF opened Street Anatomy, a new solo show by Austrian artist Nychos a week ago last Friday night. He's been steadily filling our city with murals over the last year, with one downtown on Geary St. last summer, and new ones both in the Haight and in Oakland within the last few weeks, but it was really great to see his work up close and in such detail.

Congrats on our buddies at Needles and Pens on being open and rad for 11 years now. Mission Local did this little short video featuring Breezy giving a little heads up on what Needles and Pens is all about.

Matt Wagner recently emailed over some photos from The Hellion Gallery in Tokyo, who recently put together a show with AJ Fosik (Portland) called Beast From a Foreign Land. The gallery gave twelve of Fosik's sculptures to twelve Japanese artists (including Hiro Kurata who is currently showing in our group show Salt the Skies) to paint, burn, or build upon.

Backwoods Gallery in Melbourne played host to a huge group exhibition a couple of weeks back, with "Gold Blood, Magic Weirdos" Curated by Melbourne artist Sean Morris. Gold Blood brought together 25 talented painters, illustrators and comic artists from Australia, the US, Singapore, England, France and Spain - and marked the end of the Magic Weirdos trilogy, following shows in Perth in 2012 and London in 2013.

San Francisco based Fecal Pal Jeremy Fish opened his latest solo show Hunting Trophies at LA's Mark Moore Gallery last week to massive crowds and cabin walls lined with imagery pertaining to modern conquest and obsession.

Well, John Felix Arnold III is at it again. This time, he and Carolyn LeBourgios packed an entire show into the back of a Prius and drove across the country to install it at Superchief Gallery in NYC. I met with him last week as he told me about the trip over delicious burritos at Taqueria Cancun (which is right across the street from FFDG and serves what I think is the best burrito in the city) as the self proclaimed "Only overweight artist in the game" spilled all the details.

Ever Gold opened a new solo show by NYC based Henry Gunderson a couple Saturday nights ago and it was literally packed. So packed I couldn't actually see most of the art - but a big crowd doesn't seem like a problem. I got a good laugh at what I would call the 'cock climbing wall' as it was one of the few pieces I could see over the crowd. I haven't gotten a chance to go back and check it all out again, but I'm definitely going to as the paintings that I could get a peek at were really high quality and intruiguing. You should do the same.

The paintings in the show are each influenced by a musician, ranging from Freddy Mercury, to Madonna, to A Tribe Called Quest and they are so stylistically consistent with each musician's persona that they read as a cohesive body of work with incredible variation. If you told me they were each painted by a different person, I would not hesitate to believe you and it's really great to see a solo show with so much variety. The show is fun, poppy, very well done, and absolutely worth a look and maybe even a listen.

With rising rent in SF and knowing mostly other young artists without capitol, I desired a way to live rent free, have a space to do my craft, and get to see more of the world. Inspired by the many historical artists who have longed similar longings I discovered the beauty of artist residencies. Lilo runs Adhoc Collective in Vienna which not only has a fully equipped artists creative studio, but an indoor halfpipe, and private artist quarters. It was like a modern day castle or skate cathedral. It exists in almost a utopic state, totally free to those that apply and come with a real passion for both art and skateboarding

I just wanted to share with you a piece I recently finished which took me 4 years to complete. Titled "How To Lose Yourself Completely (The September Issue)", it consists of a copy of the September 2007 issue of Vogue magazine (the issue they made the documentary about) with all faces masked with a sharpie, and everything else entirely whited out. 840 pages of fun. -Bryan Schnelle

Jeremy Fish opens Hunting Trophies tonight, Saturday April 5th, at the Los Angeles based Mark Moore Gallery. The show features new work from Fish inside the "hunting lodge" where viewers climb inside the head of the hunter and explore the history of all the animals he's killed.

Beautiful piece entitled "The Albatross and the Shipping Container", Ink on Paper, Mounted to Panel, 47" Diameter, by San Francisco based Martin Machado now on display at FFDG. Stop in Saturday (1-6pm) to view the group show "Salt the Skies" now running through April 19th. 2277 Mission St. at 19th.

For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to quit my job, move out of my house, leave everything and travel again. So on August 21, 2013 I pushed a canoe packed full of gear into the headwaters of the Mississippi River in Lake Itasca, Minnesota, along with four of my best friends. Exactly 100 days later, I arrived at a marina near the Gulf of Mexico in a sailboat.

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